Neighbourhood Services
Director: Ron Ashton
William Wallace House
Orchardbank Business Park
Forfar
DD8 1WH
13th May 2011
Response from Angus Council to The Scottish Government’s Discussion Paper on The
Scottish Social Housing Charter.
1.
Introduction
1.1
Angus Council broadly welcomes the intentions of The Charter, and believes that it should provide
an opportunity for tenants and customers of social landlords to have a greater role in shaping the
services which they receive.
2.
General Comments
2.1
We believe that outcomes should be consistent for all social landlords and there should not be
separate outcomes for Councils or other specific landlord groups, as in the suggested outcome for
gypsies / travellers. The inclination to introduce strategic housing authority issues should be avoided.
2.2
Angus Council agrees that the Charter should be focused on outcomes and not be prescriptive about
the means to achieve them. Processes should be agreed between tenants and their landlords as
part of their business plan development. Angus Council therefore believes that the suggested
outcomes in the discussion paper need to be made more clear and concise and not give so much
detail that they begin to suggest processes (as in ‘Access to housing’). At the same time The Charter
needs to allow for flexibility so that the service provided by the wide range of social landlords can be
responsive to local priorities, issues and resources.
2.3
It is important that the suggested outcomes should be worded from the point of view of tenants and
other customers – not for the benefit of the Housing Regulator. At the same time it is important that
outcomes are measurable, and some thought should be given to how this will be achieved so that
landlords can report annually in a meaningful way. It will be difficult to develop robust measurement
tools for some of the suggested outcomes as they stand.
2.4
Whilst Angus Council appreciates that the Charter will provide a mechanism for performance
assessment of social landlords it should not create a new and parallel system which would duplicate
other existing frameworks and increase the resource burden for landlords. Rather it would be
desirable for the Charter to be aligned with Single Outcome Agreements, Best Value 2 and other
existing performance frameworks including that developed by the Scottish Housing Best Value
Network (SHBVN).
2.5
As the Charter develops, consistency of information and direct comparability will be crucial to
establishing reliable performance baselines against which to measure trends of improvement or
decline. It is appreciated that self assessment is the most logical tool to support a move towards a
risk based approach, but it is vital that systems are robust and consistent. Angus Council would
therefore support any discussions between The Government, the Regulator, COSLA, SFHA and
SHBVN, designed to develop a national housing self assessment framework based on agreed
standards and methodologies.
3
Comments on Individual Suggested Outcomes.
3.1
Customer Participation. Terminology could be more consistent throughout the outcomes – ‘Tenants
and other customers’ being a reasonable description to stick to when describing stakeholders. The
outcome could be more concise – the first part is actually a ‘standard’ with the second two alluding to
how it could be measured. Again reflects the difficulty in only measuring outcomes – and highlights
the need for more detailed discussion around this.
3.2
Communication / Customer Service. Whilst agreeing that these are both important issues, Angus
Council feels that these 2 outcomes are too similar as they stand. Each should be more concise,
focused and measurable. These outcomes are designed to show that a landlord has a) customer
care standards and b) measures and reports on the outcomes. It would be more helpful to have
higher level outcomes than those suggested.
3.3
Housing Quality. The third part of the outcome is not required as it is inherently included in part 1
(meeting the SHQS). Part 2 should be revised to reflect local relet standards ie: ‘Homes meet the
minimum standards agreed by tenants, at the point of allocation.’
3.4
Access to Housing. This outcome is too long and wordy – it needs to be made more concise, remove
duplication and remove reference to processes. The issue is that applications have simplified access
to housing and provided customers with clear information on their re-housing prospects. No mention
of participation in a CHR.
3.5
Homelessness. This should be re-titled to ‘Housing Options Advice’ and any use of the word
‘Homeless’ removed. It may be useful to include the reference to temporary accommodation (as in
3.4) to this section.
3.6
Tenancy Support – This is delivered to a wide range of customers not just focused on supporting
those with rent arrears. This outcome should be more focused on the effectiveness of housing
support.
3.7
Rents. Whilst Angus Council appreciates the need to have a financially based outcome it is difficult
to see how the suggested outcome as it stands will be measured in any meaningful way. Rent levels
reflect a whole series of factors and are inextricably linked to a housing provider’s business plan. It is
suggested that concentrating on ‘Rents set in agreement with tenants’ would be beneficial, if this
outcome is to be retained at all (see below).
3.8
Value for Money. This could be combined with Rents (above) as it would provide a more useful
outcome in terms of reflecting the level of service provided to tenants and customers in return for the
level of rent received. The outcome needs to be more measurable and refer to tenants and other
customers rating the service. There is no industry standard to assess VFM so we would welcome
further discussion around this. SHBVN have been developing a model which could be shared.
3.9
Anti Social Behaviour. Replace reference to ‘residents’ with ‘tenants and other customers.’ Part 2 is
a process and should be removed.
3.10
Estate Management. Replace reference to ‘residents’ with ‘tenants and other customers.’
3.11
Transparency / access to information. This outcome duplicates other outcomes (such as
communication and customer service) so is not required.
3.12
Services to gypsies / travellers. This is a strategic housing authority issue which is not applicable to
all social landlords – it should therefore be removed.
3.13
Other customers. This should be removed as a separate outcome and its content included under
‘Estate management’.
3.14
Equalities. Angus Council considers that equalities are inherently included in a landlord’s duty to
provide transparent and equitable services, so no separate outcome is required.
4
Conclusion
4.1
Angus Council look forward to working with The Scottish Government to make the new Scottish
Social Housing Charter an effective tool for improving services to tenants and customers, all be it
with some amendments to the suggestions set out in the discussion paper. If at the same time, a
robust self assessment tool can be developed in conjunction with SHBVN, the business of
monitoring performance towards the Charter will be achieved in a consistent and co-ordinated way,
and with a methodology that make comparisons meaningful.
Contacts:
Alan Mckeown, Head of Housing
John Morrow, Manager (Housing Policy)
tel 01307 474779
tel 01307 474786